


Ann's Last Jog

by dreambeliever617



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 16:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11211549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreambeliever617/pseuds/dreambeliever617
Summary: Ann Perkins has admitted that she often defines herself based on her boyfriends-but why? Ann arrives at some epiphanies while on one of her dreaded jogs with Chris.





	Ann's Last Jog

“Are you ready?”

Not really, Ann thought. 

“Of course,” she said. 

As Ann followed Chris out the door, she reflected with some regret that she was the sort of woman whose thoughts often differed too sharply from her actual words, though perhaps that was true of everyone. Not her exuberant, outspoken best friend Leslie, of course, and not the unsettlingly candid, darkly insightful April, either. Nor was it likely true of April’s husband (and Ann’s own ex-boyfriend), the filter-free, cheerfully irrepressible Andy. Or of her current boyfriend, the hyper-expressive, intense and charismatic Chris, the only man she had ever loved enough to willingly jog for. 

So perhaps some people were adept at verbalizing their true thoughts and feelings, Ann conceded. But one could hardly draw any conclusions about how typical human beings functioned from analyzing the ones to whom she was closest. She took longer than strictly necessary to tie her sneakers and considered with a combination of affection, bemusement, and an emotion she couldn’t quite identify how odd it was that she just happened to seek out such unusual individuals. After all, Ann herself was nothing if not determinedly normal.   
She and Chris began their pre-run stretching. Although they had started jogging together over a month ago, Ann still hadn’t developed an instinct for which parts of her body to stretch or for how long, so she carefully emulated her boyfriend’s movements. As a nurse, I should have a better understanding of these things, she reprimanded herself. And I should embrace the opportunity to engage in such a healthy activity instead of constantly dreading it with an irrationally fiery passion… 

Chris interrupted her inner monologue, which was a welcome reprieve. Ann generally avoided being alone too long with her own thoughts and feelings, which her mother had taught her is guaranteed to lad to discontentment. 

“Ann Perkins, when did you first fall in love with-”

Ann’s heart did an impromptu cartwheel. From the first moment I saw you, she found herself thinking. 

But that was impossible, of course: she was too resolutely levelheaded and rational to believe in love at first sight. 

“-exercise?” 

Ann gave an awkward laugh, realizing belatedly that nothing particularly funny had been said. Chris did love exercise, as purely and intensely he loved a wide variety of other pursuits, and it had never occurred to him that Ann didn’t share this passion for this particular form of voluntary torture. To be fair, Ann had perpetuated this misunderstanding by readily accompanying him on all of his recent runs, no matter how physically and emotionally fatiguing she had started to find them. 

“I’ve been running for as long as I can remember.” This was true, though only if one defined ‘running’ a bit less literally. Throughout her childhood, Ann’s father had often felt compelled to move his wife and daughter abruptly from one town to another. 

“We just think it’s important to continually change your environment so that you don’t become too bored in any one place,” her mother had explained. They had just loaded up the car with their relatively few belongings, spontaneously deciding to leave the remote Michigan town where 10-year-old Ann had finally had made a couple of friends and become a bit less shy around her teacher to an even more remote Wisconsin town where she would once again be The New Girl. This meant being stared at, gossiped about and forced to once again try to blend in to her new surroundings, doing well enough in school without ever calling too much attention to herself and being pleasant to her peers without revealing too much about her family. “If someone asks what daddy does, just say he’s in the process of changing fields,” her mother would remind her anxiously. Ann dutifully complied the first couple of times she was asked, but then she began responding that she didn’t know. It was the truth; she didn’t know, not exactly, just that whatever it was never seemed enough for him, as he always felt the need for new starts in new places. 

“Moving around so much will help you become the resilient and adaptable person that life requires us all to be,” her mother said hopefully.   
Their lifestyle had certainly served to make their mother adaptable; she seemed to blend seamlessly into any environment, always becoming whoever she sensed a given situation required her to be and eagerly casting aside her own individual desires (assuming she had any) to accommodate her father and maintain marital harmony. Her father had frequently praised her mother’s selflessness, extolling her as everything a good woman should be. 

“You should learn from your mother,” he told Ann, and she had done just that. 

Ann and Chris jogged to the new park Leslie and her department had fought for. Ann marveled again at how Leslie always knew just what she wanted both professionally and personally. She would work tirelessly until her dreams became realities, never changing or compromising herself just to mollify others. Ann admired and adored Leslie (even if she didn’t express these sentiments quite as frequently and profusely as her best friend did), but reflecting on Leslie’s particular strengths made her uncomfortable today. She tried to make vapid small talk with Chris to distract herself from her own thoughts, though keeping up with her athletic boyfriend was such a chore that she eventually gave up trying to choke out actual words in between gasping for air. 

“Should we try to go faster?” Chris asked hopefully. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. It was fortunate that Ann knew of some real vulnerabilities and insecurities lurking beneath her boyfriend’s perfect veneer, because the way he exercised with such a lack of effort and surfeit of enthusiasm while blithely assuming she would do the same was rather maddening. Not that Ann would ever say so, of course. 

I like jogging, she reminded herself sternly, even as Chris seemed alarmingly prepared to start sprinting at full speed. Or at least I want to be someone who likes jogging, and doesn’t that amount to the same thing? Her mother had always reminded her that we can choose who to be at any given moment of any day. Most of the time, that struck her as inspiring. Lately, recalling that same piece of encouragement had stirred a strange sort of unease in her instead. Who was she choosing to be? And was she really just free to continually create and recreate herself daily, an unskilled artist awaking every morning to a blank canvas, or had nature and her nearly three decades on this planet combined to give her a fairly well-established set of traits, tendencies, flaws and talents, some of which she hadn’t yet discovered because she hadn’t had the desire to examine herself too closely? 

Her mother had always said that introspection was a form of vanity, and that most problems stemmed from people focusing inward rather than on the needs and desires of those around them. Her mother would have happily jogged next to her father forever if he had wanted her to. Even as the careworn woman collapsed in exhaustion, she would have convinced herself that she genuinely enjoyed it, and it wouldn’t have mattered even if she hadn’t. In fact, her mother had spent her last days on this planet running literally and figuratively around to please her father. A disconcertingly vivid picture lodged itself stubbornly in Ann’s mind. Her mother dashing about to make life better for her father without any regard for herself. And now here she was, dutifully running alongside Chris…

Ann came to an abrupt halt without even consciously deciding to do so. Chris noticed sooner than she would have expected and jogged back to where she stood, out of breath but already feeling better standing still on her own than she had while scrambling alongside him. 

“I am not my mother,” she announced, as if the poor man had claimed otherwise. 

“Yes, I was starting to suspect as much. Your failure to secure us that AARP discount on last week’s movie tickets was my first clue. Seriously, are you okay?” His face, usually sporting a smile, was now radiating concern. It was true that that, as she had just felt compelled to point out, she was not her mother. And as long as she was making these distinctions, it was only fair to note that Chris was nothing like her father. 

Ann began to speak, but not with the usual forethought or careful calmness that had always characterized most of her conversations, making them more pleasant but less meaningful. She found herself not knowing what she was going to say until the words had already burst out of her, eager to finally see the light after years of being buried in the dark recesses of our minds that store all the truths we’re not ready to confront. She told Chris all about how her mother had always defined herself based on the man in her life and how she, Ann, had been subconsciously doing the same. It was creepy how we became our parents without even realizing it, wasn’t it?

“Well, Dr. Richard Nygard claims that-”

“Yes, very interesting,” murmured Ann. As a general rule, she was quite supportive when it came to her boyfriend’s hero worship of his therapist, but not when she was in the midst of an epiphany-laden meltdown. 

“But never mind about him,” Chris said hastily. “The focus now is on the one person I adore more than Dr. Nygard.”

Ann gave an uncertain smile. “Me? It is me…isn’t it?”

Chris smiled back. “Yes, Ann Perkins. In fact, sometimes I think I care about you even more than you care about yourself.” 

Ann continued talking with her head leaning against Chirs’s shoulder, which had the dual benefit of allowing her to feel physically connected to him while not having to look directly into his eyes as she made some of her more shameful confessions. “I just don’t know who I am.” 

“Well, no one really knows themselves,” Chris said comfortingly. “Most of us just need to labor under the illusion that we do; you’re just being candid about it.”

“Don’t most people know their core traits and basic interests by now, though?” Never one for rhetorical questions or those which would yield no helpful answers, Ann hurried on before Chris could formulate a reply. “I have this personality, or lack thereof, that kind of allows people to fill in the blanks as they see fit, you know? And those perceptions become reality, and I end up doing what my mom always did: becoming who others expect me to be instead of figuring out who I actually am. Like, for example, I…well, I may as well just say it. I hate jogging. Deeply.”

Her boyfriend let out a gasp, and Ann gave him a comforting pat. “I made myself do it and told myself I liked it, but I was lying to you and lying to myself. I may not know who I am yet, but maybe part of how I figure that out is letting myself admit who I’m not. I’m not a world-conquering firecracker like Leslie, I’m not super unique and creative like April, and…” She resumed the consoling pats. “…and I’m not a jogger. I’m sorry, Chris. I know how much you looked forward to our joint jogs, but maybe we’ll find other things we both love doing together aside from going out to eat, watching movies and, well, you know…that.” 

“I am quite fond of that,” Chris reflected happily. “But mostly I just like being with you, especially when you happen to be delivering literally the most gloriously insightful monologue I’ve ever heard.”

“You must have spent the vast majority of your life around mutes,” Ann said wryly, and they both smiled. Chris thought she was funny. Most others didn’t, but maybe most others didn’t matter. 

“I’ll be here while you self-discover, but not more here than you want me to be. I learned from Dr. Richard Nygard that ---well, I’ll download his latest seminar for you so that you can absorb it for yourself. Anyway, I am happy for you, Ann Perkins. You’ve spent your life helping and supporting others, and now you’re finally going to give yourself the time and attention you deserve.”

“I’ll still have attention for you, too,” she assured him. The fact that her fitness-fixated boyfriend could handle her revelation about hating exercise with such equanimity boded well for him allowing her to grow into her true self while they continued dating---whoever that self turned out to be. 

“I must admit that I’m happy for me as well,” Chris mused. “The truth is, I always preferred to go jogging alone. It’s like the therapy I give myself when I’m not paying a lot more to get it from Dr. Richard Nygard. I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings; after all, you seemed to love our joint jogs so very much…”

Their hearts were both lighter as they separated temporarily, with Chris resuming his run and Ann feeling a rush of relief that she would never again force herself to join him. 

“What will you do for the rest of the morning?” he asked curiously. 

“I’m not sure,” Ann admitted, “but I know I’ll figure it out.”

THE END


End file.
